Photo # 1 (Oct 2009)

STEPHAN'S QUINTET

Riveted
 
It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.

Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.

It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious dénouement
to the unsurprising end - riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.
                                  - Robyn Sarah

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM$ ERO Team

The first identified compact galaxy group, Stephan's Quintet is featured in this stunning image from the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. About 300 million light-years away, only four galaxies of the group are actually locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters. The odd man out is easy to spot, though. The four interacting galaxies (NGC 7319, 7318A, 7318B, and 7317) have an overall yellowish cast and tend to have distorted loops and tails, grown under the influence of disruptive gravitational tides. But the bluish galaxy at the upper left (NGC 7320) is much closer than the others. A mere 40 million light-years distant, it isn't part of the interacting group. In fact, individual stars in the foreground galaxy can be seen in the sharp Hubble image, hinting that it is much closer than the others. Stephan's Quintet lies within the boundaries of the high flying constellation Pegasus.

There are wonders and mysteries - solved and yet to be solved - in our universe. Will we survive our human homicidal and cuicidal behaviors to learn more of the answers, or will we disappear into the oblivion of a toasted planet that each of us is cooking just that little extra bit - which collectively will burn us to a crisp...

Or might we wake up from our self-absorption in the material comforts that we are continuing to produce and accumulate at the expense of the survival of every living thing on this planet as we know it?
                                   - Dan Benor, MD